CANOPY HOUSE_

PRIVATE SINGLE RESIDENCE & STUDIO

status: unbuilt

LOCATION: happy valley, robinvale, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA

awards: architeam awards 2013 - unbuilt award - winner

"Formally a series of 4 petrol station canopies designed to cater for an Italian snow climate, the imported ‘CJ Canopy’, was erected around Australia for Mobil in the 1970`s by Gordon James Nicholson and his building team.

The configuration of internal spaces is adapted from the drive-through nature of a petrol station with rooms configured as a series of bands with ‘petrol pump’ services at either side.

A series of operable glass garage doors open the house up to create a continuity with the surrounding landscape into internal areas.

The project looks to give this intriguing object [The existing Canopy] a new life as a weekend/holiday house rather than eventually wasting away to become landfill or the like".

A weekend/ holiday house & studio for an artist.

Formally a series of 4 petrol station canopies designed to cater for an Italian snow climate, the imported ‘CJ Canopy’, was erected around Australia for Mobil in the 1970`s by Gordon James Nicholson and his building team. A local icon of the nearby Robinvale area who re-assembled the canopy on his land as a hay shed in the early 1990s.

The project looks to give this intriguing object a new life as a weekend/holiday house for Nicholson`s nephew & artist.

The configuration of internal spaces is adapted from the drive-through nature of a petrol station with rooms configured as a series of bands with ‘petrol pump’ services at either side.A series of operable glass garage doors open the house up to create a continuity with the surrounding landscape into internal areas.

The project looks to give this intriguing object [The existing Canopy] a new life as a weekend/holiday house rather than eventually wasting away to become landfill or the like.

A carefully considered palette of materials has been chosen such as plywood & recycled timbers [joinery] to continue the themes of recycling & re-interpretation.

The roof of the canopy is to be lined with photovoltaic panels for lighting & hot water.

The Canopy`s original structure was design to cater for snow conditions & associated water run-off due to snow lying within the valleys of the triangulated structural panels. Therefore in the warmer climates such as the proposed, the existing structure would be perfect for rainwater collection into below ground rainwater tanks.